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ENGLISHMAN IN BENIN CITY, 1981 (Part Nine)
Madam Ngu finally cornered me in the buka.
If I had any inkling she was coming to that buka that fateful day, I would rather have starved than be found dead there. She had been looking for me for weeks. And I had been evading her. I was trying to break free of her influence and she was trying her very best to ensure that she stamped herself into my art, my being, my style of creating, and my idioms of expression. She had studied at the Royal College in London and was trying to make me a master draughtsman who painted in the European fashion. And I was a radical looking for a way to break out of the western mold of painting.
IV
“The Police Area Commander (AC) is interested in the case,” a police officer with a cellphone said. “He just called to say that he is now at his seat, and wants to see all of you in his office.” The AC’s office was about one hundred meters across the yard, from where we were seated. We all filed into the AC’s office. He was seated, and his large desk was decorated with pictures, flags and small objects with personal sentimental values. He was a handsome middle-aged man who seemed rather too pleasant looking to be a police officer. Not until he stood up did I realize that his gait was forward-leaning, with the robust physique of a football tackler. You wouldn’t want to be in his way despite his handsome mien.
Demolition
A silent demolition is going on.
When I was about 8 years old, I walked from Akarabata Line 2 to Iremo in Ile Ife, a distance of about three miles, every morning, at dawn. I was attending a private coaching class that started at 6 am, two hours before formal classes began at 8 am.
I gave my paper titled, “Can’t Kant Count: Ifa Divines for African Art History
I gave my paper titled, “Can’t Kant Count: Ifa Divines for African Art History,” at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, over the weekend.
Many people gave me warm responses.
Here I was, doodling on my coffee cup while listening to another talk at the conference.
Are Africans “shithole” as President Donald Trump has allegedly pontificated?
I arrived the United States in September 1992. When I stepped on US soil at the JFK airport I had exactly $98 in my pocket. Yet by February 1995, I successfully defended my doctoral dissertation at one of the best universities in the United States. I never enjoyed a penny of scholarship money. I was not entitled to, nor did I receive student loan. I worked my way through college.
PLUTOPHOBIA
A new word will enter the streets of Nigeria.
It is PLUTOPHOBIA: the fear of the rich.
It won’t mean, as it often does, the fear of getting rich.
It will mean the fear and loathing for those who are getting rich, while the majority of Nigerians see themselves as getting poorer by the minute.